Pat and I moved a lot in the early years of our marriage. One of those moves took us to Colorado where our second daughter (Kayla) was born. However, the real highlight of our time in colorful Colorado was the purchase of our solid oak dining table. This wasn’t just any table though, it starts out as a fairly typical table, but once you put in all the leaves (which conveniently store inside the table itself) it can comfortably seat at least 10 people. Up to this point we had been using a circular metal patio tables given to us by my parents, straight out of their backyard. We were so excited to have purchased such a nice piece of furniture that I was a bit particular about protecting it. Tablecloths or placemats were a must for ensuring our beautiful table stayed looking as gorgeous as the day we brought it home.

It was very difficult to find a picture of the table without a tablecloth, but I finally succeeded.

When we remodeled our current home we decided to eliminate the area for a kitchen table, and instead have one very large island/peninsula with room for 6 stools. Since it doesn’t make sense to put a tablecloth on the Island, placemats have become my new best friends. My Husband thinks I have taken it upon myself to collect as many as possible. Quite a few are made by me, and many of them are adorned with moose. I can’t seem to resist a cute moose; which as we all know, is every moose.

With my fondness for decorating with, and collecting placemats it seemed only natural that one of my first patterns when we started this business was a placemat. The pattern uses two coordinating fat quarters for each placemat and the back wraps around to the front to create a binding with self-mitered corners. Over the years I have made lots of different versions, usually out of coordinating batik fabrics.

It’s such a simple pattern, and best of all, it uses up those fat quarters you couldn’t resist but didn’t have a plan for. (What, you don’t do that? Just me? OK then.) It’s only $3.00 and you can download it straight to your computer to get sewing now.

As Kayla revealed in a recent blog post, I LOVE decorating for the holidays and to me, my kitchen isn’t holiday ready until there are some seriously cute placemats lined up on my island. With Halloween rapidly approaching, I decided it was time to make a new set of placemats.

I used ½ yard of four different fabrics and followed the placemat directions from our Denali Collection book.

This pattern has you construct the front, then join the front, batting and back with quilting and finally, finish the placemat with a cotton binding. You can check out our method for machine binding here.

I liked the placemats just like this, but then I thought I could make them just a smidge cuter if I added some of the appliques from Kira’s Halloween Favorites Template pack. I was right. They got cuter.

If you want to make some of these for yourself, we have enough fabric to make a few kits. The kit will include 2 yards of cotton and the wide rickrack for $30.00. Contact Sheila at sheila@mckaymanormusers if you want a placemat kit (to make 4 coordinating placemats). If you want to add the appliques you can purchase the Halloween Favorites Template Pack here and contact me at sheila@mckaymanormusers.com if you want a cuddle bundle.

Happy Sewing,

Sheila

AKA Moose

P.S. On a completely unrelated, personal note, my husband and I just celebrated our 39^th wedding anniversary last Saturday. I’m so glad I found such a wonderful man, and that we have had such a great time growing together. It really is great being married to your best friend!